Riot of colour: Ugandan police use water cannon to spray protesters with PINK dye

Colourful protests are usually borne out via creative placards or cheeky chants – not by demonstrators covered in pink liquid sprayed on them by police.

That is how hardline Ugandan authorities deal with protesters however. Yesterday hundreds of anti-government marchers were splashed with the gaudy hue by special water cannons.

The scenes of men and women being showered with water mixed with pink dye in capital Kampala came as month-long protests over soaring prices and a disputed election turned ugly.

Splash of anger: Police spray Ugandan protesters with coloured water during demonstrations in the capital Kampala

On Monday, at least nine unarmed people are believed to have been killed – including three shot in the back as they fled.

The tactic of spraying paint at protesters fairly common in Uganda and elsewhere in the continent.

It was used during the Apartheid era in South Africa, most famously in the 1989 Purple Rain Protest in Cape Town.

Spraying protesters a distinctive colour is carried out by such regimes because difficult for people to escape the police’s clutches while out of the demonstration zone.

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni's crackdown on protesters has become increasingly desperate in recent days.

Yesterday he said would change the law to deny bail to people accused of riots and economic sabotage.

Pinked: Ugandan opposition politician Olara Otunnu is shielded by his supporters during the attack

Overcome with emulsion: Spraying tactics are the latest desperate tactic of disputed President Yoweri Museveni

The east African country's capital five other towns have been rocked by violent clashes between demonstrators and security forces during protests against soaring prices of food and fuel.

Mr Museveni, in power for 25 years, accused the opposition of trying to spread chaos to avenge their defeat in February's disputed presidential elections which he won with a 68 per cent majority.

‘People think it's a game playing with the economy of Uganda, scaring away people who come to do business and invest,’ he said.

The violence has threatened to overshadow his $1.3million inauguration ceremony to launch Mr Museveni's fourth term on Thursday.

The President blamed the rising food and fuel costs on drought and global increases in oil prices.

Ugandan opposition politicians are behind the ‘walk to work’ protests, in which people are called on to leave their cars at homein solidarity with those who cannot afford fuel.

Makeing their mark: The paint is used both to humiliate protesters and make it easier for police to track them down

The protests have sparked violence in the capital Kampala and several other towns for nearly a month.

But the protests show no sign of dying down and human rights groups have warned that his crackdown is becoming increasingly brutal.

Campaign group Human Rights Watch even called on the British government to stop training the Ugandan police until an investigation is carried out.

Both the UK and Ireland jointly fund an initiative to train the police in public order management.

‘Uganda's security forces met the recent protests with live fire that killed peaceful demonstrators and even bystanders,’ Maria Burnett of New York-based HRW said in a statement.

‘A prompt, effective, and independent investigation into the violence is essential. For far too long Uganda's government has allowed a climate of impunity for serious abuses by the police and military,’ the group said.

Ugandan Police say an investigation is already underway.

Strife: Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, left, and opposition leader Kizza Besigye in a Kenyan hospital last month after fleeing the country following his arrest. Presidential elections held in February have been disputed

‘A police investigation has started a long time and already people have been arrested in some places,’ a spokesman said

‘Officers are going back to the scenes, interviewing people, gathering evidence,’ she said.

The worst violence was on April 29, one day after the violent arrest of the country's main opposition leader Kizza Besigye, who has been spearheading the protests.

Mr Besigye fled to Kenya after being freed on bail, He has received hospital treatment for eye injuries he suffered when police drenched him with pepper spray and hauled him onto a pick-up truck.

Officials from his Forum for Democratic Change party (FDC) said he would return to Kampala on this morning and stage a ‘national prayer’ rally in a stadium on the same day as Mr Museveni’s inauguration ceremony.